Obama Stiffs the Brits

By Jack Kelly, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - March 10, 2009

Americans anxiously watching their 401ks melt away may not have noticed the Obama administration is off to a rocky start in foreign policy, too.
We were told often during the campaign that Mr. Obama would repair relationships with foreign governments allegedly damaged by the "cowboy"diplomacy of George W. Bush. But in his first weeks in office, President Obama gratuitously has offended allies, and has made clumsy overtures -- contemptuously rebuffed -- to adversaries.
Most puzzling has been the back of the hand treatment the president has given to our closest ally.
Most in Britain were ecstatic when Mr. Obama was elected. None more so than Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who hoped proximity to The One would boost his own flagging standing in the polls back home.
It didn't work out that way.
"The murmurs began when President Obama returned to the British embassy the Winston Churchill bust that had been displayed in the Oval Office," wrote Dana Milbank of the Washington Post. (continues)